Introduction:

I have noticed that genealogy mailing lists, at least those I subscribe to, frequently receive requests for an explanation of aspects of the English local government system as it affects genealogists. Questions such as; "What is the difference between a shire and a county?" or; "A document I consulted says this village is in county A, but my map/gazetteer says it is in county B, which is right?"; and less frequently people want to know what is meant by a hundred or a poor law union. This page is intended to help to answer such questions, showing how the system originated and how it has changed over the centuries. It also contains some explanation of other units of local government and types of settlement, mainly for the period prior to the reorganisation of 1974. Specific counties, etc,. will be mentioned only by way of examples, partly to keep this page to a reasonable size and partly because I simply don't know all the details of the changes in names and boundaries that have taken place. Where I become aware of them I will point to other sources of such detailed information. If you know of such sources, or if you find any errors on this page, or would like it expanded to include some additional related material, please let me know.

Origins of the counties:

During much of what we call the Saxon period, the British Isles were divided into a number of warring kingdoms. I will deal mainly with England, because that is what I know most about, but so far as genealogy is concerned, the differences in other parts of the island are not very significant. Although the word county is derived from the Norman French comté, the boundaries of Norman counties corresponded in most respects with those of the Saxon shires of the immediate pre-Norman period. Many of them were in turn based on much older tribal districts, which are reflected in names of Celtic origin such as Cornwall, Devon and Kent. Essex, Middlesex and Sussex were the lands occupied by the East, Middle and South Saxons respectively, while Norfolk and Suffolk were similarly the areas of the North Folk and South Folk of the Angles' kingdom of East Anglia.

The shires of the more northerly east and midlands were formed later by the Danes, and named after the local military centre in each case (Bedford, Cambridge, Derby, Huntingdon, Leicester, Lincoln, Northampton, Nottingham and York). The counties of the west midlands were formed by the king of Wessex after he invaded the area which had been the kingdom of Mercia.

The remaining counties of northern England were created by the Normans to produce a reasonably uniform system across the whole of England.

Various forms of County names:

In total contrast to the system in USA, the word "county" is a not part of the name of English counties, with the sole exception of County Durham, where it precedes the main part of the name in the same way as in all Irish counties. The American form of having the word "county" after the main name is always wrong in referring to a county in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Many, but by no means all, have the syllable "-shire" as the last part of the name, and in a few cases this was normal use once but is slowly being dropped. Examples of counties which are losing or have lost their suffix in this way are Devon(shire), Dorset and Somerset.

Old documents consulted by genealogists of course show the usage which was normal at the time they were created, often differing from what is used now. (I am speaking here purely of naming conventions, not of changes in boundaries, which are covered below.) Counties which took their names from a major town within them, such as those created by the Danes listed above, were often referred to, for example, as The County of Nottingham, meaning the whole of Nottinghamshire. A particularly confusing example of this is the common naming of Hampshire as The County of Southampton; I have even found this on a will abbreviated to "co south".

'Co.' is commonly used in old documents as an abbreviation for the word county.